A few days ago, Warcraft Technical Game Designer Celestalon dispensed two hours worth of information on Twitter. One specific topic caught my eye. It’s no secret that racial bonuses in the game are a little skewed and slightly imbalanced. Many of the top tier raiding guilds are Horde and I’m fairly certain much of it is due to the min-maxing bonuses that the racials provide. So come Warlords, they’re mostly getting overhauled. While nothing has been finalized just yet, here’s where the racials stand right now.

Dwarf: Lost Crack Shot and Mace Specialization. Gained Might of the Mountain, a passive which adds 2% Crit Damage. Also… A change to Stoneform: Also removes Magic/Curse. HOWEVER, it still cannot be used while CC’d. (It is still NOT a CC-break)

Night Elves: Quickness also increases movement speed by 2% passively. They also got a new passive which is quite unique… (Remember, no more haste breakpoints!) Touch of Elune, a new passive which grants 1% Haste at night, 1% Crit during the day.Shadowmeld is unchanged.

Undead are seeing relatively few changes. Tweaks to the scaling rate of Touch of the Grave, and WotF to 3min CD (up from 2 minutes).

Pandaren, of course, will most likely not see a change and retain their Epicurean bonus.

The Draenei racial bonus is much more appealing. Too bad we don’t know what the +X value is for the primary stat. It’s going to go right to Intellect for priests of all kinds. Gift of the Naaru will heal 20% of a target’s health over 5 seconds (instead of 15). It’s another healing spell you can add to your bar and you can save it for emergencies (every 3 minutes).

My first Priest was a Dwarf. I miss Stoneform and the ability to shrug off poisons. Now it functions as a secondary self dispel since it can remove magic debuffs and curses. The extra crit damage is handy for the Shadow and the Discipline Smiters though. May not be as helpful for Holy.

What about the Gnomes? There’s still the bonus to mana but it’s been expanded to include the energy of other class types. The natural 1% haste is new and useful for all priest types.

Humans gain a rather unique spin to their buff. They get to select which two secondary stats get a bonus. I imagine one of those will be Spirit and the other will be Haste, Crit, or Mastery — Whatever your priest is short on. An interface is being worked up right now allowing you to pick. The ability to pick and choose offers some neat flexibility.

Night Elves. Sigh. Really? Server time makes a difference now? Blah. I hate randomness. But it looks like there’s not much that can be done about that.

Horde side, Blood Elves continue to be the winner. The crit bonus passive is second only to Arcane Torrent’s innate mana restoring capability.

Goblins? The ability to Rocket Jump is huge in heavy movement fights. Now you get a flat 1% haste instead of a bonus to attack and bast speed.

Orcs can’t play priests so that point is rather moot.

Tauren Priests are already benefitting from a slight stamina boost allowing them to withstand a little more damage than usual. But the new Brawn bonus is a solid boon for priests of all types.

The first iteration of the Troll’s Berserking was pretty overpowered. It was like a mini-Heroism on demand. Now it’s been nerfed to a flat 15% Haste bonus instead of the 20%. Not quite as good but still reliable for burst healing your way through stuff.

Huge nerf to the Undead’s Will of the Forsaken with the cooldown going up. No other changes.

So let’s assume that you’re rolling a new Priest. You have all these excellent racials available to you. No more of the junk bonus to hit or expertise or any of that stuff.

Which one should you go for?

If you plan on playing Alliance, I would favour the Draenei bonuses. Hard to say for sure without knowing what the X value is. If you’re PvPing, Dwarves or Gnomes are a good bet. I like Gnomes though since Escape Artist is handy (and the fast cooldown).

If you plan on playing Horde, I’m leaning towards Blood Elves. That mana restore is so nice to have especially on progression fights when you’re tapped out. Berserking is another trait you’ll find attractive and is great if you’re playing either shadow or healing.

Personally, I’m staying a Pandaren. Can’t get enough of that food buff.

Beat Mass Effect 3. Such a glorious game and a fantastic conclusion to the series. I can now go back to defending Azeroth and Demacia.

Before you question my allegiance to the Alliance, know that it hasn’t changed. I happened to be reminiscing about my experiences in Warcraft’s 1, 2 and 3. Naturally, my mind drifted over to WoW and I started thinking to myself what awesome missions in the RTS games would translate as either instances or raids. Thinking about the ones presently in the game made me realize that that was a distinct lack of actual Horde storylines.

Culling of Stratholme? Original Alliance mission under Arthas dedicated to levelling the citizenry.

Escape from Durnholdee? You were playing as Alliance infiltrating Alliance camps in order to break Thrall out (I guess that’s the closest one gets to Horde).

Opening the Dark Portal? Sort of independent, protecting Medivh.

Mount Hyjal? Mixed operation. Same with End Time and Hour of Twilight

Well of Eternity, I believe everyone had to play Elves.

There are so many crucial moments in the Warcraft RTS that I feel would make an awesome instance to explore. All of us players who are old enough to remember Warcraft 1 (I think I was like 6 or 7) and the subsequent releases can remember some of those chilling moments in the game where… it just got real. I think we could use some Horde representation in there too (as in, having our character models adjusted to reflect the story like how we tend to either be portrayed as humans or elves).

Lothar’s Parlay

I believe this was one area of the game that received a retcon (Lore players can help me out). The original Warcraft 2 mission had Lothar get assassinated as he was on his way to negotiate with Doomhammer. But then it got changed to a death match style encounter with Doomhammer himself or that Doomhammer had help from Horde forces. If it’s the latter, it would make a great instance.

Now we Alliance players know that there’s no way that Doomhammer could’ve solo’d Lothar, right? It makes much more sense that Doomhammer wussed out and called up his cronies who just happened to be standing in the bushes nearby waiting to ambush him.

It makes sense!

Plus it gives players the chance to take on Lothar in a boss environment.

Strike at Karazhan

Lothar leads a strike team into Karazhan to kill Medivh. I think this would be a fantastic raid instance. Looking back on it, Karazhan was a pretty fun place. They can do the Stratholme treatment (take a destroyed instance and recreate it to what it looked like originally). Some of the rooms would probably have to be enlarged to accommodate 25 or so people.

Imagine fighting Moroes with 25 people.

Will pass on Chess though.

Assassination of King Llane

Oh man. I don’t know if you’d plan this out as a raid or as a 5 man. Concept would your party assisting and clearing the way for Garona to infiltrate the throne room and help her take out King Llane. We can check out what Old Stormwind looked like without all the canals and stuff.

Others

Breaking Illidan out of the Watchers prison – An escort instance similar to Durnholde. You’d need to infiltrate the Watchers prison and bust him out.

Andorhal – Memory’s fuzzy here, but there was an Undead level in Warcraft 3 where Arthas killed Uther.

Theramore – The Horde mini-campaign in the Frozen Throne had the final level where Rexxar and the Horde assaulted Theramore to subdue Admiral Proudmoore.

I’m not as familiar with the universe in the books or in the comics, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s any moments that in any of them that might translate well into the game.

Whatever the case, here’s to having more Caverns of Time stuff in Mists! They’re starting to run out of room in there actually. I wonder when they’re going to create another floor. It’s about time the Bronze Dragonflight did some renovating.

I normally donâ€™t post news but I think this one merits something. Iâ€™m a bit stunned by this. Blueâ€™s have announced that a faction switching service is in the works. It allows players to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. In other words, I can switch from Alliance to Horde and back. I wonder what a Dwarf would transform into.

More ways to make money, I suppose. Iâ€™m almost certain this service is going to involve cash. Hands up anyone out there who would take advantage of this service. Why? Who wouldn’t? Why not? Personally not a bad idea as this would enable Wyn to raid with me if it ever came down to it.

Some more news is coming up on how tier loot and tier tokens will be handled in 3.2.

I’m sorry (no, not really), but it’s true. Alliance, you’ve got a lot of nifty things, but when it comes down to it, Horde has you beat hands-down.

Ogre Loin Cloths

You just wish you had a quest that let you dig up a Ripped Ogre Loincloth. Alliance, you may have a cutesy pet in Feralas, but Horde gets fashion. Alternate recommendation for those in the audience saying to themselves, “But Jove… Why would I want a gray item?” Simple! Slap an armor kit on one of these babies and give ‘em to your tanks to combat healer boredom during trash pulls. Fashionable and useful!

Zeppelin

I don’t know about you, but I like a little variety in my transportation. Alliance, you’ve got gryphons and boats. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with utility, but in addition to wyverns and boats, Horde gets Zeppelins. It’s an attractive way to cross the ocean without that pesky seasickness, plus it’s character-building to participate in anything created by goblins and engineers; you never know when it might blow up in your face.

Thrall

He is the Warchief. Not only is he a kick-butt shammy who can chain lightning your face into the dirt, in the past, he’s been spotted riding a pally horse and getting his mack on with two cute blonde humans at the same time. Who does Alliance have who can compete? Definitely not…

Fandral Staghelm

Related to the above, we hordies can actually kill that @$%%!# Staghelm up in his tree in Darnassus. Alliance just gets to fantasize about it. Isn’t that just like an “I win” button right there?

The Men

Sorry, Alliance. Your options are “short and creepy” or “gorilla.” Horde men have actual variety in shape and appearance, and as such present something for everyone. Like green and well-muscled? We have orcs. Tall and blue? Trolls win, and have an awesome dance to boot. Fur? Taurens, if that’s your thing. Like something you can go shopping with? Blood elves are beautiful and can also give you hair-care advice. Prefer your men deep and gothy? Undead. (Also, why is the Alliance trapped in a VH1 “I love the…” special when it comes to dances? Horde men at least are in the correct century.)

Silvermoon City

Oh Silvermoon City, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Face it, Silvermoon is what every city wishes it could be. It’s awesome enough, it deserves it’s own list.

If one is good, two is twice as good

Twice the banks and auction houses, twice as good, right? That’s right, folks. Silvermoon is the only city with dual banks and auction houses. I’m sorry, Alliance, you’re stuck with just the one per town.

Mailboxes to infinity

Have you counted the mailboxes in Silvermoon? There are approximately 15-billion. Unlike all those other towns where you literally need to “run to the mailbox” (of which you can choose between 2 or 3) in Silvermoon, one is never more than 25-feet away. Goblins totally deliver faster there, too.

It’s clean and pretty

Not only was it planned by an architect with an eye for appearances, magic keeps the streets clean 24/7. Enough said.

L70ETC

None of your cities has a rock band in residence. Silvermoon does.

Quality cyborz

Because it must be mentioned… When it comes time to settle down and engage in some romantic interlude with your sweetie, which do you prefer? A quiet inn off the beaten track, sumptuously decorated and lovely? Or Goldshire, a ratty, falling-down, decrepit and noisy place with dingy sheets and bedbugs?

Got any additions to the awesome? Any alliance want to come take me down a peg and try to prove me wrong?

Epic

About me

My name is Matticus and this is my World of Warcraft blog. Here you can read about my thoughts regarding healing as a priest. As a guild master, I also write about guild and raid related topics. The blog has expanded to include thoughts from other regular contributors. The aim of this blog is to help you grow and improve. My unending goal is to have something relevant and useful in every post. or more, you can check out my columns on WoW Insider. Visit theGuildmasters to talk shop with other GMs, raid leaders, and officers. Or if you're looking to join a guild, check out my guild Conquest.